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Debutant

Yes, our list was utter s**t and we had to overpay many vegetables to meet the minimum cap requirements. I'd be lining up all of the above before wanting to pot shot Jones for being compensated for playing with Sam Blease, James Sellar and Dean Terlich.

Brownlow Medallist

take the captaincy of jones next year for sure but give him the chance to hit 300 games. it will be good for the club in the long run, even if they come to an agreement that he perhaps should retire mid season once he hits 300. just to have one other name in the record along side neita to have actually made it to the milestone will mean a lot to future supporters and melbourne (always) has to look to the future supporters. i'm 46 and have seen some good times, my kid is 15 and has maybe seen a positive win ratio twice in her life. little postive milestones do matter in the long run, not just to the player involved.

Brownlow Medallist

Why have someone on the list you're not intending to play in the second half of the season? I'm sure we can enjoy enough fun and games with players' form and injury without handicapping ourselves with pension plans for retirees.

Premium Platinum

There isn't much dumber s**t you can read than saying a bloke didn't show enough on field leadership. Exactly how do you show that? Was Jones supposed to shove his entire fist up the ass of another player and force them to play? The bloke led by example for a decade. Jordan Lewis does plenty of pointing as did Chris Dawes? Were they fantastic leaders for us?

Is he the greatest captain ever? No but to say s**t like he drove the standards for a decade was ******* moronic. We wouldn't have a club if Nathan Jones didn't drive himself to be the best he could be.

Some of the s**t I read about Jones on this board makes me wanna vomit

Club Legend

Looking at the side we fielded v Saints, I would drop the following before dropping Jones:
-C Wagner
-J Wagner
-J Lewis (played alright v eagles the other week but will never forgive him for that prelim)
-O Baker
-Brayshaw (if he is playing anywhere other than onball)
-ANB (based on this season's form)
-OMac (even tho he's a KPP)

Now looking at reserves. I don't see any of the following desperately pushing to take his role in the side:
-JKH (solid at vfl but can't replicate in seniore)
-Stretch
-Sparrow (inj admittedly)
-KK (forever concussion)
-Dunkley
-Spargo (can't win a contested ball or marking contest)

Jones may have declined a bit this year, which is to be expected when shifted role and getting older, but unless we secure 2 A-Grade outside runners I don't see him not in the best 22 next year.

We don't have much depth. Could even see him get a game in 2021 (tho think he'll retire end of 2020), albeit more sporadically with time in the VFL similar to Lewis this year and Vince last year

Team Captain

In all honesty, whether we are guaranteeing him a game each week or not is debatable to me. He has been a fair way below his best the last couple of years, but it isn't like we have a bunch of stars knocking the door down in the VFL. We struggle each week to choose the least s**t 22.

Brownlow Medallist

Nathan Jones is one of my favourite Demon players ever. Blue collar workhorse and loyal as hell. Did it tough in possibly the clubs weakest era.

That said, the context of him being extremely well paid under previous contracts shouldn’t be ignored here.

Also, I understand that the figure being floated around is a base figure and there are increases for performance and number of games played which bring the figure up to a (still) conservative but more sensible number.

Norm Smith Medallist

There isn't much dumber s**t you can read than saying a bloke didn't show enough on field leadership. Exactly how do you show that? Was Jones supposed to shove his entire fist up the ass of another player and force them to play? The bloke led by example for a decade. Jordan Lewis does plenty of pointing as did Chris Dawes? Were they fantastic leaders for us?

Is he the greatest captain ever? No but to say s**t like he drove the standards for a decade was ******* moronic. We wouldn't have a club if Nathan Jones didn't drive himself to be the best he could be.

Some of the s**t I read about Jones on this board makes me wanna vomit

Duel Group 1 winner

Nathan Jones is one of my favourite Demon players ever. Blue collar workhorse and loyal as hell. Did it tough in possibly the clubs weakest era.

That said, the context of him being extremely well paid under previous contracts shouldn’t be ignored here.

Also, I understand that the figure being floated around is a base figure and there are increases for performance and number of games played which bring the figure up to a (still) conservative but more sensible number.

Club Legend

The notion of Jones being overpaid when we were s**t is bulls**t. He was paid the market value to stay at Melbourne. Similarly we didn’t pay overs for Lever and May, we paid what was required to prise them away from their original clubs and choose us over rival clubs. It wasn’t as though he was ever on Tom Boyd money.

As someone else pointed out, how could we tell what on-field leadership is - apart from finger pointing? Joel Selwood is lauded as a great on-field leader but it’d also be safe to say he’s had better back up than Jones has. It’s also well known that Jones took a number of young Melbourne players under his wing and got good results (see Brayshaw 2018).

The funniest part was when a poster attacked him on the basis of not being an all time great. That’s a bit like having an 8/10 missus but slamming her on the basis that she isn’t Miranda Kerr.

I also enjoyed the counter factuals of how Jones would be viewed as an ordinary player if he were at a great club like Sydney, Geelong or Hawthorn. Given the fact that he defied our slaughterhouse of player development for the best part of his career, isn’t it also possible he may have been a lot better at a club that knew what they were doing?

The fact Jones, banged up and beyond his prime, still has to play unfamiliar roles to cover for the deficiencies of his peers and coaches is an indictment on this club.

How is he being penalised? Why is everyone so desperate to protect the financial interests of a multimillionaire bc he’s earning $300,000 instead of $400,000? It’s not like we aren’t offering him a contract. If he reckons he can get more elsewhere that’s great but we’re not obliged to pay someone a lot of money lol. It’s not like he’s being screwed over financially, he’s getting well compensated for the current value he provides the club after 8 years of being extremely well paid

Brownlow Medallist

Touch of hyperbole there mate, it isn’t like the club hasn’t put a contract on the table. I like the guy and have a lot of respect for him but reality is he’s been average for 18 months now and likely will see time at Casey next year. Call me a campaigner I don’t care it isn’t like he’s taken unders to stay with us, I can’t see what the club has done wrong here (Especially when you consider the 258k offer would likely come with plenty of bonuses and triggers depending on games played etc).

Hall of Famer

If I were in charge at GC, I'd be dangling 600k a year at Jones for the next two. His two kids are young, so it isn't like they'd be being pulled out of school. He'd be a huge cultural barometer up there. I'd be doing the same for Josh P Kennedy at 900k a year. They need strong leadership to make sure these kids, who seem to have better habits than the last lot but are just too young to run out games, eventually flourish.

Their gain would be our loss. Nathan Jones is a legend at this club. Nothing more that I can say that hasn't already been said by saj, Stinger, Johnny and topkent.